DANA WHITE’S war of words with Bob Arum is showing no sign of ending after he labelled the boxing promoter a “d***head”.
The UFC president and Top Rank’s CEO have traded verbals several times over the years.
Dana White has continued his war of words with Bob Arum by calling the boxing promoter a ‘d***head’
And the 88-year-old Arum, who works with Tyson Fury, recently hit out at White for staging UFC events despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
He said: “I just hope that they’re not endangering the safety of anyone. But this kind of cowboy behaviour doesn’t do anybody any good.
“We’re looking now with Nevada, which we’ll do in a sensible way, or California. We’re working with [NSAC’s] Bob Bennett and [CSAC’s] Andy Foster, and we’re talking to the Texas commission.
“We’re only gonna do this if it’s safe for the fighters and everyone involved, and if it’s approved by the medical authorities.
“We’re not gonna be cowboys, like Dana White. I don’t wanna get politics involved, but I have really very little respect for Dana and what he’s doing.”
Top Rank staged their first event since the Covid-19 outbreak on ESPN last Tuesday, attracting 397,000 viewers.
Two days later they staged another, but viewership dropped to just 311,000.
Meanwhile UFC returned last month in the usual Saturday night spot, averaging 1.198m viewers.
That was followed by UFC on ESPN 9 on May 30, averaging a ratings of 1.021m viewers. UFC on ESPN 10 took place two days ago at the APEX compound in Las Vegas, and White could not resist firing a shot at Arum over Top Rank’s ratings.
He said: “So many people are watching, this is everybody’s time to shine. The sport is at a whole other level right now, you know what I mean?
“When we first started on ESPN, if you look at the ESPN totem pole, you had NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, these guys, right? And we were down like … we were one notch above Cornhole. Okay?
“Now we sit in a much better place on the ESPN totem pole than we did when we signed this deal a year and a half ago.
“By the way, Cornhole almost out-rated Top Rank the other night for their fights. So congratulations to Top Rank.
“Bob Arum, give him a shout out. Good job, Bob. You’re f***ing brilliant. You d***head.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
